Launching a new global operating model
After working on a new operating model for a year, this global sportswear brand needed its international leadership to quickly gain awareness and understanding about how the new operating model created value for the company, and then operationalize the new model.
The Ask
Organizing a high-functioning, effective team can be a daunting challenge. When it comes to structuring multinational enterprises, the complexity of the job increases several-fold. Recently, a global sports brand began the task of reforming its business structure and operating model centered around its key global city markets. With its business located around the world, the company sought to be more responsive and relevant to local markets and trends. The firm needed to put more power into the hands of local managers and increase the autonomy they had to respond to local influences and gain greater impact.
The goal included crafting a new framework and redefining the operational model by leveraging the economic impact of the company’s key global city markets. The firm sought a visual representation of the new system in order to gain awareness, rapid understanding, and acceptance, and to serve as an educational tool to inform other executives and managers of their roles and responsibilities under the new operational configuration. The illustration would serve to illuminate the logic behind the new strategy and the key benefits for the company. Territory was asked to rapidly understand the company’s overall system, visualize it, then create iterations after gaining initial feedback with the ultimate goal of empowering senior global leaders as well as local teams.
The Solution
Territory began its work by conducting an informational interview with lead executives at the company to align their objectives for the project and gain perspective on how to tailor their final deliverables to fit the company’s culture. Illuminated by this information, Territory went to work on redesigning the company’s operational model by making it clear and understandable. The existing top-down approach to the management of the company’s key city markets was revised to shift power and impact to the local level while demonstrating and integrated strategy for interaction with global functions. Territory worked hand in hand with the sports company during this stage to ensure the result was a tailored fit.
The results of Territory’s close collaboration with the company resulted in a new operating model and structure for the company being successfully launched and implemented in its key global cities. A clear vision was defined for the company and their employees to align their efforts going forward in improving the company’s performance and local impact in each city. Local managers were better equipped to handle and exploit the demands of their local environments. The benefits of the new model were clearly outlined and illustrated in the large scale visualize map and presentation which Territory developed. The large scale visualization served as a concise demonstration to company executives of the value the new model would bring to their operations as well as a guiding visualization of the new operating model structure for local and global managers.
